On December 10, 1778, two years after the Declaration Of Independence,
during the Revolutionary War, and several years before the writing
and adoption of the United States Constitution, John McKnitt
and William Sharpe received from the state a grant for a 400-acre
tract of land lying at the "forks of Cane Creek." This
was the fourth grant issued by the newly formed government for
lands lying in the region formerly reserved to the Cherokee Indians
by the British Crown as a means of holding the Cherokees as allies
against the French.

Sharpe, especially, was well acquainted with this territory.
He had served with General Rutherford in the expedition through
the Swannanoa Valley, had accompanied Waightsell Avery across
the mountains into the Washington District, and had served as
a commissioner to draw up a treaty with the Indians at the Long
Island of the Holston.

Like Avery, who later secured hundreds of grants for land
lying between the Blue Ridge and the Iron Mountain, Sharpe had
an "eye for business." There were traces of gold and
abundant outcroppings of mica and feldspar along Cane Creek and
White Oak Creek. Moreover, the soil was rich especially in the
bottoms along the creeks, and the higher elevations would be
excellent for grazing purposes. The flow of either creek could
supply power. An Indian path led westward from the Blue Ridge
by this point across the Unakas and the Iron Mountain into the
Washington District, and this could become a leading highway
in the future.

Even though the headwaters of Toe River into which Cane Creek
flows was occupied as early as 1777, the names of these first
settlers are not known. By 1790, William McKinney, Frederick
Ledford, Thomas McKinney, John Gouge, Thomas Young, John Wilson,
and Reid Medlock had established themselves in the Cane Creek
Valley, and on White Oak and Snow Creek. However, the first settler
on the site of what is now Bakersville was David Baker.

Baker, who was living in Morganton in 1790, was probably employed
by Avery and possibly by Alexander and Sharpe to move across
the Blue Ridge and look after the lands which they had entered.
By 1797, however, Baker had struck out for himself. In that year
he acquired a state's grant for one hundred acres of land, which
boundary adjoined the Alexander and Sharpe tract and included
the lands on which the business section of Bakersville now stands.

The town itself was named for the Baker family which has been
prominent in the town's history from the beginning to the present.
David Baker entertained many travelers in the early 1800s chief
of whom was the noted French botanist, Francois Andre Michaux,
who stopped at Baker's on his return from an expedition into
Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois.

David E. Baker, a son of David, was a large land owner, innkeeper,
merchant and political leader until about 1859, when he and his
family migrated to the far west. In January 1857, an adventurer
who had stopped with "Colonel" David described the
town as one of "some mark."

It is probable that Baker's plantation became known as Bakersville
in the 1840's; certainly by 1852, for in this year the court
records of Yancey County refer definitely to the town of Bakersville.
The surrounding territory including the Little Rock Creek area
was known in the tax records up to 1860 as the Cane Creek Company.
The first voting place for the company was established at Briggs'
store, which was located in the Fork Mountain area.

Since 1868, Bakersville has been the seat of government for
Mitchell County.
Important before as a trading center and village, during the
Civil War and afterward it became the center of politics in Mitchell
County and remains so to this day. The movement for the establishment
of a new county in 1861 originated in Bakersville, as did the
movement to establish the town as the county seat.

The town was incorporated in 1870, and secured a post office
in 1874. In the 1880s, citizens of the town led in the movement
to induce the Chicago, Cincinnati and Charleston Railroad to
come through the county be way of Bakersville. Bonds in the amount
of $100,000 were voted for stock subscriptions in the company.
The railroad did not materialize; but in the early 1900s another
campaign was waged to induce the Southwestern Railroad, later
the Clinchfield, to build by the town, or even to build a spur
from Toecane to Bakersville. Failing this, they sought roads.

Bakersville has experienced all types of economic weather,
fair and foul. Shut off from markets of the southeast during
and after the Civil War, the residents found that living was
tough here, as it was elsewhere in the isolated sections of the
Appalachian Mountains.

However, in the 1870s uses for mica were discovered, and Bakersville
lay midway between the Hawk, Clarissa, and Stagger Weed deposits
and the Sink Hole deposits at Bandana. For a period extending
beyond 1900, business varied with prices mica would bring; good
prices, many jobs, good business; low prices, the reverse. Fortunes
were made and lost.

In 1901, weather brought a terrible disaster, remembered as
the "May Flood." Nearly half the town's dwellings and
business establishments were swept away. For a period of time
population decreased, and the outlook was not good. Soon, however,
jobs became plentiful again as the Clinchfield Railroad extended
its line from Huntdale across the Blue Ridge.

The "new" County Courthouse was built in 1907. It
is still in use in 1999; however, construction is underway on
a new courthouse. The Bakersville Rhododendron Committee is trying
to buy the "old courthouse."

Disaster struck again in 1923 when much of the town burned.
Again the town rallied and became strong enough to survive the
Great Depression of the thirties. Bakersville enjoyed a surge
in building and economic prosperity during the middle 1950s.
Much of the town was rebuilt during that era.

However, disaster struck once again in January, 1998, when
Cane Creek swelled by torrential rains brought on by El Nino
destroyed many roads, homes and businesses, resulting in the
declaration of Bakersville as a disaster area and eligible for
Federal funds to assist in rebuilding and in preparing the terrain
to avoid another such disaster.